EDITOR'S NOTE: First Read was on scene for Obama's speech and would have posted earlier had it not been for the hostage situation at the Clinton campaign office in Rochester, N.H.

From NBC's Abby Livingston
For so long, it seemed that Obama's attacks on Hillary flew over the heads of his audiences. Using her name in his stump and addressing her personally at debates were watershed moments in his campaign. Today at the DNC fall meeting, again, he did not mention her name. He did not have to. The audience comprised of the party insiders, candidate supporters and political junkies, caught each and every one of his Hillary allusions.
 
Obama supporters cheered when he said, "And the only mission that was ever accomplished was to use fear and falsehood to take this country into a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged." People fidgeted when he used the word "triangulation." And gasps were audible when Obama said, "I'm running for president because I'm sick and tired of Democrats thinking that the only way to look tough on national security is by talking and acting and voting like George Bush Republicans."

The morning was a good barometer on base support. The Democratic audience received Richardson's speech much like a college lecture. Polite, listening, clapping, and interest despite toe tapping from young Obama supporters standing against the wall. Following Richardson, it was at times difficult to hear Edwards due to the cheering from his section of supporters. Although they had coveted seats in the overflowing room, they stood for most of his speech and waved Edwards 2008 placards.
 
But Obama's speech stood out. When he spoke, the room was akin to a high school pep rally on the eve of a rival game. One Obama supporter went so far as to apologize to this transcribing reporter for the pandemonium. During one of his introductory lines, Obama said, "The question to ask yourselves when you vote is, 'What is next for America?'" To which a female supporter stood up and screamed, "Barack Obama!"
 
Because Hillary's appearance was canceled due to the hostage situation, it is unfortunate that there is no way to compare the two leading candidates' receptions in front of the audience of party faithful.

From NBC's Mark Murray
No Democratic-leaning pundit, it seems, has been more passionate or serious on the need for health-care reform than the New York Times' Paul Krugman. As a result, people took notice when his column today blasted Obama's health-care plan, as well as the candidate's recent statements on it. "What seems to have happened is that Mr. Obama's caution, his reluctance to stake out a clearly partisan position, led him to propose a relatively weak, incomplete health care plan. Although he declared, in his speech announcing the plan, that 'my plan begins by covering every American,' it didn't — and he shied away from doing what was necessary to make his claim true."

But, channeling the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, Krugman didn't always think so poorly of Obama's plan. Almost six months ago, in a June 4 column, he mostly praised it -- although he did criticize its lack of a mandate.

The substance of Krugman's two columns is essentially the same. The tone, however, is not.

Below is the second half of his June 4 column, which discusses Obama's health plan.

"First, the good news. The Obama plan is smart and serious, put together by people who know what they're doing.

"It also passes one basic test of courage. You can't be serious about health care without proposing an injection of federal funds to help lower-income families pay for insurance, and that means advocating some kind of tax increase. Well, Mr. Obama is now on record calling for a partial rollback of the Bush tax cuts.

"Also, in the Obama plan, insurance companies won't be allowed to deny people coverage or charge them higher premiums based on their medical history. Again, points for toughness.

"Best of all, the Obama plan contains the same feature that makes the Edwards plan superior to, say, the Schwarzenegger proposal in California: it lets people choose between private plans and buying into a Medicare-type plan offered by the government.

"Since Medicare has much lower overhead costs than private insurers, this competition would force the insurance industry to cut costs -- making our health-care system more efficient. And if private insurers couldn't or wouldn't cut costs enough, the system would evolve into Medicare for all, which is actually the best solution.

"So there's a lot to commend the Obama plan. In fact, it would have been considered daring if it had been announced last year.

"Now for the bad news. Although Mr. Obama says he has a plan for universal health care, he actually doesn't -- a point Mr. Edwards made in last night's debate. The Obama plan doesn't mandate insurance for adults. So some people would take their chances -- and then end up receiving treatment at other people's expense when they ended up in emergency rooms. In that regard it's actually weaker than the Schwarzenegger plan.

"I asked David Cutler, a Harvard economist who helped put together the Obama plan, about this omission. His answer was that Mr. Obama is reluctant to impose a mandate that might not be enforceable, and that he hopes -- based, to be fair, on some estimates by Mr. Cutler and others -- that a combination of subsidies and outreach can get all but a tiny fraction of the population insured without a mandate. Call it the timidity of hope.

"On the whole, the Obama plan is better than I feared but not as comprehensive as I would have liked. It doesn't quell my worries that Mr. Obama's dislike of 'bitter and partisan' politics makes him too cautious. But at least he's come out with a plan.

"Senator Clinton, we're waiting to hear from you." [Clinton unveiled her plan a few months later.]

From NBC's Samantha Mehrotra, Liberty Matias, Lindsay Garfield
VIENNA, VA -- Biden addressed the DNC today, trumpeting his foreign policy expertise and his ability to lead the country out of Iraq. Despite looming obstacles, he promised results and a definitive exit strategy. "Iraq is like a boulder in the middle of the road -- it denies us the credibility to lead the world and the flexibility to solve our problems here at home," he said, later adding that he will end the war on the first day of his presidency.

The Democratic contender also pledged to restore moral authority in Washington. He argued that Republicans have often replaced morality with ideology, supporting policies that favor tax cuts to higher-income families and legislation that inhibits access to education.

If he becomes the Democratic nominee, Biden said, he looks forward to competing against his Republican opponents. "I cannot wait to debate Romney or Thompson, and I can hardly wait for Rudy… We will eat these guys alive -- on national security, on domestic security…"

In a sentimental closing, Biden said the election is about reconnecting with voters' needs -- speaking to both their hearts as well as their mind.

From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum
VIENNA, VA -- Arriving at the DNC Fall Meeting for the afternoon session, it is hard not to notice an absence of sorts. Driving into the Sheraton Premiere, Clinton and Edwards signs -- and no Obama signs -- line the path. At the door, Clinton supporters fight to be noticed among a lone Kucinich supporter, who wore a peace sign and attracted attention. Before any of the candidates slated to speak this afternoon (Kucinich, Biden, and Clinton), Howard Dean announced Clinton would not be addressing the DNC because of the hostage situation. The area reserved for the candidates' supporters emptied out a bit, going from a standing room only crowd to a comfortable crowd with some open seats.

Kucinich was the first presidential candidate to speak after lunch. He attempted to get as much material as possible into his 10-minute time slot. Speaking like an auctioneer, Kucinich discussed his plans for universal single-payer health care and for helping every American own a home because it is "a fundamental right in a democratic society." He took advantage of the opportunity to take a jab at Biden, saying the Delaware senator's call for Bush's impeachment if he goes to war with Iran "would be a little bit late, with all due respect."

Before ending his speech, Kucinich sent his good wishes toward Clinton and her campaign staff. "We're in solidarity with Hillary at this moment when we think about what she's going through." He then went on to express his sadness that some people can only express themselves through violence.

From NBC's Samantha Mehrotra
VIENNA, VA -- Edwards appealed to Democrats, asking party members to join him in the fight to oust a rigged political system that continues to consume Washington. "There's a wall…and we need to take that wall down," Edwards said, adding later, "For decades, politicians without convictions and powerful interests gathered their bricks and their stones and their mortar, and they went to work."

Edwards centered his speech around "the wall" today, blaming the partition on economic divides, expanded health care costs and a struggling education system. The candidate also addressed the War in Iraq, calling for increased diplomatic initiatives.

The presidential hopeful reminded Democrats to make a conscientious choice this election and to elect a candidate with fervor: "Every single day, you have a choice in this election….We can settle for baby steps, half-measures, incremental change…Or we can have some backbone, courage and strength….'"

From NBC/NJ's Erin McPike
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Romney now is emphasizing in appearances another line of attack against Huckabee instead of sticking mostly to immigration -- his spending record.

Romney's campaign has been pointing to Huckabee's record as governor on the matter for a while now, but in appearances, Romney's criticisms of Huckabee have been limited largely to the former Arkansas governor's past support for giving in-state tuition aid to the children of illegal immigrants.
 
Before taking questions from reporters after an event at Kirkwood Community College, Romney said that, as governor, Huckabee "took spending from just over $6 billion to $16 billion. And he financed that by raising taxes time and again. He raised sales taxes, gasoline taxes, grocery taxes, even taxes on nursing home beds."

Romney's campaign is also now giving Huckabee the Giuliani treatment with a new opposition research e-mail document on his tax record sent out to reporters today with the banner headline, "Those who know him best."
 
Romney went on that the discussion over the differences in his and Giuliani's records on fiscal issues have already been publicized, but he conceded, "We both lowered taxes." He added, however, that on city and state taxes for people working in cities, "New York still has some work to do to catch up to Boston -- not just in baseball."
 
Pressed by a host of reporters to comment on Giuliani's expensing situation as mayor, Romney hesitated. "He hasn't really laid out at this stage his full explanation for all that was shown," Romney said, "and so my view is, let's give him the benefit of the doubt until he has a chance to do that."
 
And asked to respond to countercharges about the numerous political trips he made while in office, he explained, "The use of security is 24 hours a day, regardless of what you're doing, whether you're taking a vacation at the beach or whether you're traveling for politics -- that's a very normal procedure."
 
The candidate spent a fair amount of time discussing fiscal matters this morning at a town hall event, lamenting the wastefulness of Washington and adding that he'd start with the Department of Defense as a place to start looking for ways to cut excess.
 
Despite the criticisms of his rivals, Romney did pay one of his lower-rung competitors a compliment. "One thing I thought was great in the debate the other night was Tom Tancredo's point" about candidates talking about all of the programs that the government could launch, but the problem that causes because they ultimately drive up spending.

From NBC's Samantha Mehrotra, Matt Panichas and Kimberly Kaplan
Richardson made his 10 minutes on the podium count this morning. He started out with a jab about his lack of exposure during the debates. "Today, I was told I have 10 minutes," he said, earning some audience laughter. "Of course, Wolf Blitzer tells me that before every debate."

His speech today concentrated on jobs and working Americans. "If we want to earn votes of hard-working Americans, we have to prove we'll work hard for them," Richardson said.

Richardson specifically highlighted his record on job creation in New Mexico, where he created 80,000 jobs and invested state money in local businesses. He emphasized his plan to create jobs across the nation, saying his approach is the most comprehensive of the candidates.

Richardson also pointed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who pioneered the New Deal, as a type of leader he would like to model himself after. "If we stand for anything," he said of the Democratic Party, "we stand for jobs."

NBC's Abby Livingston adds that Richardson was the first to speak, then Edwards, and then Obama were scheduled to speak before the lunch recess. Although luck of the draw determined the candidate order, the sequence also showed an increase in intensity from the crowd toward each candidate. The Democratic audience received Richardson's speech much like a college lecture -- polite, intently listening, interested…and some toe tapping from young Obama supporters standing against the wall.

BREAKING NEWS: "An armed man has taken two campaign workers hostage at the Hillary Clinton campaign office in Rochester, police said," per WMUR-TV. 

Clinton is in DC today for the DNC fall meeting. Per NBC's Lauren Appelbaum, the Democratic National Committee has announced that Clinton will not be addressing the DNC fall meeting because of this situation.

*** UPDATE *** Here is the Clinton campaign's statement: "There is an ongoing situation in our Rochester, NH office. We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting at their direction. We will release additional details as appropriate." 

From NBC's Andrea Mitchell and Domenico Montanaro
Hillary Clinton is trying to turn up the heat on Barack Obama over health care. In a conference call with reporters today, her campaign manager demanded that Obama's campaign take down a TV ad running in New Hampshire that claims Obama's health care plan would cover "everyone."

"By choosing to forgo a mandate, it's not universal," said Neera Tanden, Clinton's policy director. "It will leave 15 million Americans uninsured. Even with a generous subsidy, millions of Americans will not get health insurance."

The campaign doesn't supply data to support the 15 million figure, but cites independent analysts, specifically studies published in the Inquiry Journal. One such study on mandates and health care from the journal was authored by Dr. Jeanne Lambrew, who told First Read in an e-mail that she is an informal adviser to Clinton. Lambrew, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, also served as a health policy adviser in Bill Clinton's administration from 1997 to 2001. In a memo on health care costs, the Clinton campaign footnotes an article Lambrew co-authored with John Podesta, Bill Clinton's former chief of staff.

On the conference call, the campaign said Clinton's mandate would be "enforced through default enrollment." In other words, people "would be automatically enrolled, anyone who goes to the emergency room," for example. The campaign said it would try to work through employers as well.
 
"She has experience in this issue and knows how to work with congress to make it work," her staff said. The campaign did not say specifically what percentage of income individuals should expect to spend on health care, but added that Clinton is in favor of a cap on how high it can go.

When asked why she is now attacking Obama every day, rather than avoiding inter-party attacks as she previously promised, Campaign Communications Director Howard Wolfson said Obama and Edwards have been attacking Sen Clinton "on a daily basis." So, he said, it was "important for us to correct the record and make sure people knew the facts."

Obama's ad, though went up two months ago when asked why the campaign is now calling for it to come down, Wolfson said it was "seen yesterday in New Hampshire." When the ad first went up in late September, it began running in Iowa. After a week of debating health care, Wolfson said it was important to respond.

"He [Obama] chose to put up this ad I guess to make up for this weakness, and we want to make sure voters get the truth," Wolfson said. "We're not going to mislead voters for him saying that he covers everyone when he doesn't."

Campaign Manager Patti Solis Doyle even wrote a letter to Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe, asking the campaign to take the ad down, calling it "false" and "inaccurate."

The Obama campaign responds: "The Clinton campaign didn't say a word when this ad was released a month ago, and the only thing that's changed since then is the poll numbers. The truth is, Barack Obama would offer health coverage to every single American who can't afford it, and he'll do it by bringing Republicans and Democrats together like he's done before. Rather than spending their time attacking Barack Obama, the Clinton campaign should explain how exactly they plan to order every American to buy health insurance even if they can't afford it," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. 

From NBC/NJ's Matthew E. Berger
OKATIE, SC -- Giuliani refused to take questions here today about allegations that travel expenses were picked up by obscure city offices when he was mayor of New York City.

"We've already explained it," he said, walking past reporters after a town hall meeting.

Giuliani, who is normally friendly to reporters, bristled past them, and campaign staffers were unusually physical in keeping the press away. Several campaign aides told campaign reporters to return to the press area, and some of his security detail manhandled reporters. On other occasions, reporters have been free to video Giuliani as he is shaking hands and signing autographs after events, and he often informally takes questions from reporters.

Giuliani is holding a similar town hall meeting in Boca Raton, FL, but traditionally does not hold a press availability after town halls.

From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
Below is a partial transcript of Biden campaigning yesterday in New Hampshire, where he said that he would move to impeach Bush if he unilaterally attacks Iran.

QUESTIONER: "I have a great fear that say you're elected as the nominee of the party. Next August sometime during the summer, Dick Cheney and George are going to bomb Iran."

BIDEN: "Legitimate concern."

QUESTIONER: "What can you do about it?"

BIDEN: "I am not one, who if you've observed me for some time, I am not one who's engaged in excessive populist rhetoric. I'm not one that pits the rich against the poor. I'm not one who's gone out there and made false threats against presidents about, and god love him he's a great guy, I'm not Dennis Kucinich saying impeach everybody now. But let me tell you, I have written an extensive legal memorandum with the help of a group of legal scholars who are sort of a stable of people, the best-known constitutional scholars in America, because for 17 years I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

"I asked them to put together [for] me a draft, which I'm now literally riding between towns editing, that I want to make clear and submit to the Untied States Senate pointing out the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran. And I want to make it clear, I want it on the record, and I want to make it clear, if he does, as chairman of the foreign relations committee and former chair of the judiciary committee, I will move to impeach him."

[APPLAUSE]

...

SECOND QUESTIONER: " ... I say this not to fan flames, and not to sound like a raving lunatic. You did mention something about impeachment, if George Bush does something regarding Iran. I say this as a strategic or tactical question. Do you think it would be useful now to forward an impeachment motion as a signal to the world that we're headed in the right direction?"

BIDEN: "It's a valid statement to make. It is not as clear constitutionally that articles of impeachment would lie absent his action, which is crystal clear if he acted without congressional authority in Iran. It is arguable constitutionally whether some of the action he has taken thus far amount to high crimes and misdemeanors that could be in fact proven.

"So it makes it difficult. But beyond that, it is counterproductive. Let me make it clear what the impeachment case I made is. I think the best deterrent is for the president to know, even at the end of his term, we would move and move to follow through with that so his legacy would be marred for all time if he acted in what was clearly, clearly an impeachable offense. In the absence of that, what happens is, and you're gonna think I'm joking about this. I'm not. If you're gonna impeach George Bush you better impeach Cheney first. Not a joke. Not a joke."

From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
NEW YORK, NY -- Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg met for breakfast this morning, an unexpected encounter that was publicly announced around 3:00 am ET.
 
Press gathered outside a window of "The Luncheonette" on 50th Street between 3rd Avenue and Lexington to watch the two politicians have breakfast. Though the mob of press assembled couldn't hear anything through the plexiglass, Bloomberg and Obama spoke for at least 40 minutes over coffee, tea, eggs, and bacon -- and from the looks of it, the conversation appeared serious and earnest.
 
From our vantage point, it appeared that the mayor likes to put a "liberal" amount of salt on his eggs. Senator Obama appears to prefer tea over a cup of joe in the morning.
 
The men shared a couple of laughs towards the end of the breakfast. Obama picked up the check of about $11 ,and left a $10 tip on the table. The manager of The Luncheonette said the place was no stranger to politicians: Giuliani frequently stops in, and President Carter also has made a visit.
 
The mayor's office stressed that he has met with almost all of the candidates running for office, but could not confirm if he had such a public "private" meeting with anyone else running for president. The last time the mayor met with Sen. Clinton was on September 11th, when the two spoke privately backstage.
 
The meeting between the two has fueled speculation about whom Bloomberg -- who has said that he will not run for president -- might endorse in this election. However, his press aides would not entertain any such question. The mayor has publicly said that he wants to play a role in the presidential race by bringing awareness to important social issues.
 
This is the second prominent meeting that Obama has had with a well-known New Yorker. Last night, he met with Al Sharpton at Sylvia's Restaurant in Harlem before his fundraiser at the Apollo. The two discussed the importance of hate crimes legislation, and Sharpton reported that though he hasn't decided on who to endorse yet -- though he's moving closer to a decision.

From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro

*** Closing argument time: Back in early February, almost 10 months ago, the Democratic presidential candidates all spoke at the DNC's winter meeting in DC. And in a way, each of them made their opening arguments there. Clinton played up her anti-war credentials. ("If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will.") Obama said it was time "to turn the page," and he talked about the politics of hope. ("We've had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we've had is a shortage of hope.") And Edwards preached that silence "is a betrayal." ("This is not the time for political calculation. This is the time for political courage.") Today, the candidates once again speak to the DNC -- this time in Northern Virginia -- where they get to make their closing arguments with just 34 days to go until Iowa. Richardson, Edwards, and Obama (in that order) speak in the late morning, while Kucinich, Biden, and Clinton (in that order) take their turns in the early afternoon.

*** Another round of forums: But that isn't the only forum these candidates will address in the next two days. Saturday afternoon, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Kucinich, and Obama -- appearing separately -- speak at the Heartland Presidential Forum in Des Moines, IA, where they will discuss issues like agriculture, health care, and immigration. Then, beginning at 8:00 pm ET later that night, all eight of the Democratic candidates will participate in the "Iowa Brown & Black" presidential forum, which will focus on issues important to Latinos and

African Americans. NPR's Michele Norris and PBS's Ray Suarez moderate the forum, and it airs on HDNet TV. (If you thought the audience was small for last night's Cowboys-Packers game on the NFL Network, we're pretty sure even fewer people will have access to watch this forum -- never mind this is occurring on a Saturday night.)

*** Scrutiny time: With Iowa getting closer and closer, the media's coverage of the top Democratic candidates is getting tougher and tougher. While many focus on Obama's coffee with Michael Bloomberg this morning, Obama aides and supporters have to deal with a Washington Post piece that resurrects the Hopefund PAC story and a Paul Krugman column that excoriates Obama on health care (with some amazingly harsh language; will he be this harsh of an Obama critic if he's the nominee?). Clinton doesn't get off easy, either. The Post today emphasizes the media's frustrations with the Clinton campaign, and the Boston Globe suggests that New Hampshire has become a firewall for her. (Is this a good thing? Raising expectations like this for New Hampshire?) And Huckabee gets a little bit of scrutiny today, too.

*** Bill's back: Bill Clinton returns to campaign in Iowa on Saturday. And as WHO-TV's Dave Price notes, it will "be a battle of the Clintons" in the Des Moines metro area that afternoon. "Hillary will take part in the Heartland Forum in downtown Des Moines at 4:40 pm ET, while Bill speaks at 4:30 pm ET at Norwalk High School. Price asks: Does the press cover Bill or Hillary?"

*** Biden says the "I" word: Biden made news by saying yesterday that Bush should be impeached if he unilaterally attacks Iran. The liberal blogosphere will love it. But this is striking language from the guy who may want to be the next secretary of state. (Will this come up at his confirmation hearing? Doesn't this put the nail in his coffin for running mate consideration?) Ironically, a call for impeachment by Foreign Relations Committee Chair Biden would have garnered more headlines than a call for impeachment by presidential candidate Biden.

*** Security detail vs. Kerik indictment: Isn't it interesting that this story about Giuliani's billing records and his security detail while mayor has received more play and put Giuliani more on the defensive than the actual Bernie Kerik indictment? (We'll let others decide why the one affair is more intriguing to the press than the other affair.) Giuliani spent the entire day on the defensive over this story, but the big question is whether this is going to spur more reports about this period in Giuliani's political life. Is this the start of a rough couple of weeks or simply another Kerik-like speed bump?

*** On the trail: Elsewhere today, Dodd -- who isn't attending the DNC meeting -- campaigns in Iowa; Edwards heads to Des Moines after speaking at the DNC confab; Giuliani speaks at a town hall in South Carolina and then one in Boca Raton, FL; Huckabee, in New Hampshire, addresses the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce; McCain stumps in South Carolina; Romney attends a series of events in Iowa, including an Iowa Christian Alliance house party; Tancredo is in New Hampshire; and Thompson, along with wife Jeri, appears on CNN's Larry King Live.

Countdown to Iowa: 34 days
Countdown to New Hampshire: 39 days
Countdown to Michigan: 46 days
Countdown to Nevada and SC GOP primary: 50 days
Countdown to SC Dem primary: 57 days
Countdown to Florida: 60 days
Countdown to Tsunami Tuesday: 67 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 340 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 417 days

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As for the Brown & Black forum tomorrow night, the Iowa Independent reports that "concerns have emerged about the way it is being organized. The forum, which is the oldest minority-focused presidential debate in the country, is one of the great traditions of the Iowa Caucuses, but local activists and campaigns have been frustrated by this year's planning and execution."

Mainly, one Obama supporter believes the current chief organizers of this event, Wayne Ford and Mary Campos, are too aligned with Clinton. Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, the two organizers denied any allegations that they were favoring one candidate over others. "I don't think that question needs an answer," Ford said. "I am a little insulted that people would even think that," continued Campos.

BIDEN: The Nashua Telegraph: "Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned that if the Bush administration goes to war with Iran, Congress should impeach the president. The Delaware senator said under current circumstances, the president lacks Constitutional authority to attack Iran. He also criticized Republican and Democratic presidential candidates for their 'fixation' on what he called Iran's limited nuclear weapons capabilities."

The Des Moines Register analyzes Biden's "Joe is Right" Web video. "The problem with touting all the times you are right is that others can inevitably point to the times you weren't... Biden has admitted what some anti-war Democrats view as a crucial mistake: voting for the Iraq war… Still, others in the race -- Sen. Clinton, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut -- all have admitted making the same error."

CLINTON: The Boston Globe: "With Hillary Clinton faltering in polls leading up to the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary is looming as a possible make-or-break moment for her -- in a place where she has most of the party's key endorsements and a sizable lead in the polls, but where a defeat could be devastating." Of course, this next graph explains why she should be the favorite to win the primary. "Unlike in Iowa, where the major endorsements are split among several candidates, Clinton has the support of most of the Democratic party establishment in New Hampshire. She has other important advantages here that she lacks in Iowa, including a history of campaigning for her husband and New Hampshire's recent tradition of electing female politicians."

"But Obama's campaign has also stepped up its efforts and is preparing for a showdown as well. Obama's campaign said it has kept pace with Clinton's in paid staff and its volunteers are just as busy knocking on doors, making phone calls, and writing postcards."

The Washington Post front-pages the frustration the media is feeling when it comes to attempting to cover Clinton. "Clinton aides say they try to stage a 'press avail,' or brief news conference, every five or six days, but they acknowledge the schedule often slips. (Obama is also on a weekly schedule; Edwards, third in the national polls, is more accessible.)"

Clinton's campaign has been very adept at winning the support of prominent African-Americans. The latest feather in the campaign's cap: Jacqueline Jackson, mother of Jesse Jackson Jr., who has been cutting radio ads for Obama.

Clinton got "standing ovations" from evangelicals in her event with Rick Warren, the Orange County Register reports. Although all leading presidential candidates were invited, Clinton was the only one to show up for the annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church. She delivered a bipartisan message that emphasized the role of the church in addressing AIDS. "Twenty five years ago when people – mostly young gay men – started dying of an unnamed disease, we didn't talk about it in church," she said. "We've come a long way. Not only can we talk about AIDS in church, but churches can lead the way."

"Last year, Warren welcomed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois to the stage at Saddleback, and this year, the minister invited all the presidential candidates in both parties to address his congregation on the HIV pandemic. With just five weeks until voting begins in the presidential nominating contest, only Clinton came in person; Republicans Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney and Democrats Obama and John Edwards addressed the congregation through videos."

In an interview with C-SPAN, Bill Clinton talks a bit about the records issue. "'I want this stuff out there. Some of it may be misused, and some people may want it for reasons that are not entirely academic, but that's OK,' he said. 'I want the records out there.' 'The public has to know, they're not my records,' he continued. 'They belong to, and [are] under the jurisdiction of the Archives. But I have the power to keep all of them closed for 12 years. I didn't do that. We've released about a million pages already.'"

Clinton explained some of the possible reasons for delay. "'If there was a private cell phone number there, the archivist has to go through and mark that out for privacy reasons, just on the off chance that they still have the same cell phone number,' he said. 'If there were the names of Secret Service agents or a list in questionable places of how many agents were there, they mark that out so they won't be giving deployment information." More: "'Those are their rules, not mine,' he added. 'And I get why they do it. But we're not trying to hold up anything… I think we have to follow the law. They're not my records, and it's not my law."

So why didn't more folks assume the RFK Jr. endorsement of Clinton had something to do with winning favor with someone who might have some say in who replaces her in the Senate... hmmmm

EDWARDS: The candidate yesterday talked up the penalties he'll impose on Americans if they choose not to get health insurance under his plan if it's passed. "'My health-care plan requires responsibility from everybody. The government's responsible, the individual's responsible, the workers are responsible, and the employers are responsible… 'So if you don't have health-care coverage, and you go to the emergency room, you get enrolled. If you're a 5- or 6-year-old and you go to kindergarten or sign up for school, you get enrolled, if you're not on a health-care plan. If you go the library, you get picked up.'"

The Des Moines Register looks at "The Evolution of John Edwards." "John Edwards tells voters that there are still two Americas. What Iowa caucusgoers must decide is if there are two John Edwardses. Four years ago, the fresh-faced then-North Carolina senator defended his support for the Iraq war, prescribed a gradual approach to health care reform and told Iowa caucusgoers not to expect him to criticize his fellow Democrats running for president. Today, he calls his Iraq vote a mistake, embraces universal health care and regularly attacks party front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York."

OBAMA: Here's a report of Obama scheduled coffee meeting with Michael Bloomberg this morning.

It was Showtime at the Apollo last night for Obama. "The event, held in what is perhaps Harlem's most famous landmark, was symbolic not only because of the site but also because it took place in Mrs. Clinton's backyard -- and at a theater only a few blocks west on 125th Street from the offices of former President Bill Clinton."

The New York Post found one Obama quote they viewed as a shot at Clinton: "'Telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of what they need to hear just won't do" in this election, Obama said at the historic theater, just down the street from Bill Clinton's office."

NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan was on the scene, and she says some of the most memorable lines of the evening were not delivered Obama -- but rather by Chris Rock, who introduced the candidate. Urging the audience to support Obama, Rock teased the crowd,  "Progressive people want to be on the right side of history, because you'd be real embarrassed if he won and you weren't down with him… 'I can't call him now I was with that white lady what was I thinking what was I thinking?'"

Rock went on to belittle President Bush and compared the way the federal government handled its response to the wild fires in California to the emergency response in Katrina. "This is how [Bush] dealt with catastrophe. The fires in LA, he was there the next day," Rock said. "White people burning he was there. Black people drowning he don't care… He was putting out the fires with Katrina water!"

The crowd went crazy, and when Obama took the stage he joked that it wasn't always a good thing to follow the likes of not only Chris Rock, but also academic Cornell West who had previously spoken.  The only other well-known VIP to attend the event was rapper Q-Tip, who never took the stage. Speaking for about half an hour, Obama stuck to a speech that he has delivered before in South Carolina on why he's running for office with a new kind of politics. He repeated lines such as "textbook" and "poll-driven" when talking about how the country needs a new direction, but largely stayed away from either contrasting his positions or attacking his fellow Democrats.

Anburajan notes, however, that the real political story may have happened a few hours before Obama's appearance at the Apollo Theater. Yesterday, Obama sat down to have dinner with Al Sharpton at Sylvia's Restaurant, a Harlem institution. The two glad-handed with diners, and Obama even carried a baby before he and the reverend sat down for some soul food. Obama had shown up at Sharpton's office just a few blocks away and had asked the reverend to come and have dinner with him at Slyvia's so they could "talk" about the importance of hate crime legislation. The Obama campaign made sure to invite the New York and the national press along to photograph the event.

"'A man who likes fried chicken and corn bread can't be all that bad,' Sharpton declared with a smile after he and the Illinois senator dined at Sylvia's Restaurant in Harlem. Asked if he would endorse Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sharpton replied, 'I haven't made a decision yet.'"

The Washington Post's Solomon has another follow-up on the story about Obama's leadership PAC and the donations it's made over the last few months. "Obama's presidential campaign helped recommend several of the donations his political action committee made in recent months to politicians in key primary states as the campaign was working to secure endorsements, campaign officials said yesterday. The acknowledgment alters the campaign's original account of how donations were directed and raised questions among some legal experts about whether the presidential committee was using Obama's leadership PAC to benefit his campaign. The Obama campaign said it is confident it complied with the law."

"An Obama campaign spokesman last week said that 'there is no connection' between the PAC donations and the presidential campaign. But Bob Bauer, the private counsel for both Obama's campaign and Hopefund, said yesterday that campaign workers were involved over the summer in identifying and recommending possible recipients when Hopefund was deciding how to spend its remaining money. In particular, Bauer said, senior campaign strategist Steve Hildebrand was consulted 'multiple times' on potential donations."

Somehow, we're starting to think that Paul Krugman doesn't like Barack Obama. A couple of weeks ago, it was on Social Security. Today, it's on health care. "Obama, then, is wrong on policy. Worse yet, the words he uses to defend his position make him sound like Rudy Giuliani inveighing against 'socialized medicine': he doesn't want the government to 'force' people to have insurance, to 'penalize' people who don't participate. I recently castigated Mr. Obama for adopting right-wing talking points about a Social Security 'crisis.' Now he's echoing right-wing talking points on health care." 

Meanwhile, it looks like Doug Wilder is up to his old games. After previously hinting he may endorse Obama, he issued a statement this week that he's still neutral. (Let us guess: Obama hasn't called Wilder in a while and the former Virginia governor -- and now Richmond mayor -- isn't happy about that. Or maybe Obama's campaign didn't agree to a major event in Richmond. Or maybe...)

RICHARDSON: S.R. Sidarth -- a.k.a. "Macaca," the Jim Webb volunteer who was filming George Allen when the Republican uttered that now infamous slur -- has signed up to work for Bill Richardson.

In his latest National Journal column, NBC political analyst Charlie Cook raises this point: "With the economy clearly weakening, many top economists fear a recession. Even if the economy doesn't reach that point, they predict a slowdown in the annual growth rate to perhaps 1 percent. Given this, will the focus on national security and terrorism give way to greater concern over the economy? And will that put the ball in Romney's court, where his managerial competence as Massachusetts' governor and in business could trump national security worries?"

More from Cook: "A shift in focus to the economy would certainly give this contest a new twist. On October 9, Republicans held a debate in Michigan, ground zero in America's economic war zone, yet the candidates hardly addressed the anxiety over the economy that many voters had been expressing for months."

The L.A. Times examines how the phrase "sanctuary city" became such a dirty word, er, phrase, in the GOP race.

Reporting on Wednesday's GOP debate, NBC's David Gregory said on Nightly News that "the immigration debate has become the core of the fight for the GOP nomination."

And Bloomberg News looks at how South Carolina is just as angry over the immigration issue as GOPers in Iowa. Note this irony: "It's striking that immigration is the paramount domestic issue in South Carolina, since the state has no more than 75,000 undocumented residents, estimates the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research group. All immigrants, legal and illegal, make up just 3 percent of the population of 4.3 million, compared with 12 percent of the U.S. as a whole."

The Columbia State reports on the Confederate flag issue from the debate, and tried to get all of the candidates on the record about it.

GIULIANI: The Politico follows up on its breaking news from Wednesday. "Giuliani and his senior aides Thursday blamed anonymous bookkeepers for his administration's practice of billing the travel expenses for his personal security detail to obscure city agencies. But a top aide was unable to say why Giuliani's administration and his successor's rebuffed questions from the city's top fiscal watchdog in 2001 and 2002. City Comptroller William Thompson said Thursday his auditors were 'stonewalled' by the Giuliani administration when they inquired about the unusual billing procedures, which he called 'disturbing.'"

The Rudy-Judith expenses story takes the cover of the New York Daily News. With a photo of a worried-looking Giuliani, hand over mouth, screams the headline: "DOESN'T ADD UP! Now Rudy camp changes story of tryst dollar accounting."

It is the second story in the New York Post. Its headline and subhead: "Rudy Pin$ Blame on NYPD: Claims 'slow' dept. spurred 579G juggling act."

Giuliani used the timing of the security detail story (just a few hours before the YouTube debate) as a defense.

Politico's John Harris responded to Giuliani's "hit job" charge: "This was a fair and carefully reported story. We gave the Giuliani campaign ample opportunity to dispute the story or comment on our reporting before publishing and they did not do so. Since the story ran, we have not heard from the campaign disputing any substantive aspect of the story." 

Meanwhile, the New York Times does a fact-check story on Giuliani and the various statistics he uses to back up his success claims in NYC. "And while, to be sure, all candidates use misleading statistics from time to time, Mr. Giuliani has made statistics a central part of his candidacy as he campaigns on his record." More: "Facts and figures are often the striking centerpieces of Mr. Giuliani's arguments. He has always had a penchant for statistics — his anticrime strategy as mayor was built around a system known as Compstat that closely tracked crimes to focus law enforcement efforts. On the campaign trail he often wields data, without notes, with prosecutorial zeal to hammer home his points. But in recent days, both Mr. Giuliani's Republican rival Mitt Romney and Democrats have accused him of a pattern of misleading figures and have begun to use the issue to try to undercut his credibility."

"From time to time, he'll exaggerate, he'll do a misleading number, or he'll just get something plain wrong," Cooper told NBC's John Yang on Nightly News last night.

HUCKABEE: Here comes the scrutiny… McClatchy's David Lightman: "Mike Huckabee was an early signer of the Republicans' no-tax-hikes pledge, and he's campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination by touting the 90 different taxes he cut as the governor of Arkansas." But" "He doesn't mention how, during his 10 and a half years as governor, he presided over $505 million worth of tax increases. Sales taxes were raised. So were gasoline taxes, and the per-capita tax burden on the state's residents grew by about 50 percent."

But headlines like this should help… The Union Leader header calls Huckabee "Iowa's 'Hot Ticket'" and notes he's headed to New Hampshire this weekend.

The Los Angeles Times' Z. Barabak takes a look at the surprising strength of Huckabee in Iowa.

The AP's Fournier looks at the two men from Hope, Ark. "Though polar opposites in political ideology, these two men of Hope, Ark., came to the national stage with similar strengths and weaknesses. Huckabee hopes his measure of the former outweighs the burdens of the latter, as they did for twice-elected Clinton."

MCCAIN: Yesterday, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis sent out a memo trumpeting McCain's performance at Wednesday's YouTube debate. "McCain was the only candidate who sounded like a president -- clear in his vision for a safe and strong America -- and the only candidate on stage with the experience and knowledge to be commander in chief on his first day in office. I have to think the Clinton campaign is having a great day after watching the various schoolyard fights that broke out between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Do we really believe that by ripping our party apart on immigration we will be better able to win a general election against Hillary Clinton and the Democrats?"

PAUL: Could Ron Paul meet his $12 million fundraising goal for the fourth quarter by the end of the weekend? Apparently. 

ROMNEY: According to BeliefNet, Romney will delay giving The Speech until at least next year. "'A lot of people were talking about doing it before Thanksgiving and the holidays, but then we moved up in the polls, including in South Carolina,' a senior Romney advisor tells Beliefnet. 'So the thinking became that the timing [for a speech on religion] was not as rushed.'"

"'It might be that a speech is more appropriate for late in the primaries or for the general election,' said another Romney advisor. 'Frankly, this is going to be a question of polling; if we're doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire, and [Romney's Mormonism] is not coming up as a divisive issue, maybe we should just stay the course, since winning in those early states is key.' 'I came onto the campaign with great conviction that the speech needed to happen immediately,' said this second advisor. 'Now, I'm a little more hesitant.'"

THOMPSON: In his first visit to Arizona as a presidential candidate, Fred Thompson yesterday joked about -- and expanded on -- the message of his campaign's negative YouTube video in last night's debate, NBC's Andy Merten notes. Asked by a reporter in Phoenix after a lunchtime fundraiser about the "aggressive" nature of his YouTube ad last night, which hit Romney on abortion and Huckabee on taxes, Thompson laughed, saying: "I used their own speeches against them." He added, "It's not aggressive at all."

The Los Angeles Times delves into the conservative blogger angst over how Democratic partisans were allowed to ask questions in the debate. "A review by the Los Angeles Times of the debate sponsored by CNN and YouTube four months ago found that the Democratic presidential candidates also faced queries that seemed to come from the conservative perspective. At least two of the citizen-interrogators had clear GOP leanings."

McCain ripped CNN for the questioner who asked about gays in the military and who is part of a Clinton steering committee. "I think that should have been revealed," McCain said per the New York Post. "I think that should have been made public if this individual was a member of another . . . campaign. Then people would, obviously, have a better way of judging the quality of the question." 

The Washington Post: "CNN Admits Holes in Screening of Questioners."

Meanwhile… "ABC News and WMUR-TV have announced back-to-back Democratic and Republican candidates' debates on Jan. 5. Fox News and the New Hampshire Republican Party plan a GOP debate Jan. 6.  But New Hampshire GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen raises the prospect of Republican candidates skipping the WMUR debate in favor of the Fox event, both to be held at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown."

From NBC/NJ's Erin McPike
Romney will return to New Hampshire Monday for a two-day swing through the state, where he often focuses on fiscal issues. But just ahead of this visit, the Log Cabin Republicans have released a new radio ad in the state that criticizes the former Bay State governor on his record on taxes, saying he's "Mitt-flopped."

"Mitt Romney's record doesn't match his rhetoric on taxes and almost every other issue," Patrick Sammon, the group's president, said in the release about the ad.

Giuliani's camp has also attacked Romney for his record on fiscal issues, but Romney returned with the claim on Monday that he cut taxes 19 times while in office, and the campaign later provided supporting documents.

"He raised taxes on some New Hampshire residents who worked in Massachusetts, taxing their income and their pensions. That's a Mitt-Flop," an announcer says in the ad, before charging that despite Romney's claim to have close loopholes he did raise other taxes.

It goes on: "Romney even refused to support the Bush tax cuts. Now?  He's seen the light on tax cuts. Do you believe this conversion?"

On the trail, however, he does say that he wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. And a major part of his message is fiscal restraint -- especially in the Granite State.

The Log Cabin Republicans released a nationwide TV ad in October criticizing Romney for changing positions on a host of issues, but didn't mention gay marriage. It got a fair amount of play and even caused a South Carolina Republican operative to tell this reporter that due to the ad, "which was weird," he was throwing his support to Thompson.

*** UPDATE *** Kevin Madden, Romney campaign spokesman, sends this response: "This negative attack and gross distortion of the governor's record was launched and paid for by a group recognized as having Mayor Giuliani as their 'favorite' candidate. Governor Romney supports a federal marriage amendment and so it makes sense that a national gay rights group would attack him.  Governor Romney has a stellar record of fiscal responsibility, having cut wasteful spending and worked to lower taxes as a chief executive focused on pro-growth economic policies. It's a record that even a negative attack ad can't change."

Here's the full transcript:
"Mitt Flops" (Radio: 60)
ANNCR: Mitt-Flops…sounds like something you'd wear to the beach, but they could cost you.
Let's see.
Running for governor, Mitt Romney said he'd balance the budget without raising taxes.
So what'd he really do?  He raised taxes on some New Hampshire residents who worked in Massachusetts, taxing their income and their pensions.
That's a Mitt-Flop.
Then Romney claimed he was just 'closing loopholes'.  The truth: he raised taxes $128 million.
After that? $70 million more.
A year later? He tried to hike taxes another $170 million. That's a triple Mitt-Flop.
Romney even refused to support the Bush tax cuts.
Now?  He's seen the light on tax cuts.  Do you believe this conversion?
Massachusetts Mitt sounds like another flip-flopping politician…
JOHN KERRY [file clip]: "I actually did vote for the 87 billion dollars, before I voted against it."
ANNCR: Mitt Romney -- just another Massachusetts flip-flopper.

From NBC/NJ's Tricia Miller
DES MOINES, IA -- Citing "very substantive policy differences" between his health care mandate and those of his leading opponents, Edwards began a press conference by reiterating his charge that Obama's health care plan is "not universal." Obama has been facing off with Clinton over their health care mandates the last few days.
 

"[Sen. Obama's health-care plan] does not require that everyone be covered," Edwards said, "and as many as 15 million Americans would be without coverage. And I've seen an estimate that up to 90,000 Iowans would be without coverage."
 
The former North Carolina senator also continued to differ with Clinton on the issue, largely repeating his campaign's charge from yesterday. "Sen. Clinton's plan, which came out in September, is very similar to mine that came out in February. But I have not seen any specifics about how her mandate would work or how she would enforce her mandate," he said. "I've laid out exactly how my mandate would work and we have a way to make sure it's enforced."
 
Edwards said that in his plan, subsidies would be available to help low-earning families. "The fundamental structure of the plan provides subsidies and the subsidies go up to about $100,000 of income. So for lower-income families, they will be basically 100% subsidized, and the subsidy decreases as they go up toward $100,000 of income, so that's how they afford it. The way we bring people into the system is anytime they have contact with the health care system or the government they get enrolled, basically."
 
Edwards' media avail on health care followed his address at a meeting of the Iowa State Association of Counties. He released a list of 52 county elected officials from 37 counties who endorsed him ,and spoke to the audience about forging a "new partnership with local communities." Highlighted at the meeting were proposals to invest in rural economies, help local governments by using the federal government's power to negotiate prices for what they need, and ensure that federal funding for transportation is sufficient.
 
Edwards was the last presidential candidate to speak at the meeting. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd spoke to the group yesterday morning.

From NBC's Mark Murray

Another day, another Clinton campaign knock on Obama on the issue of health care. Today, the Clinton campaign released letters from health-care professionals across Iowa criticizing Obama's health-care plan.

Below are the letters...

1) Health care professionals from Cerro Gordo, Hardin and Webster Counties:
Senator Obama,
We are health care professionals who work in Cerro Gordo, Hardin and Webster Counties and we are writing to urge you to support universal health care. Currently, too many Iowans are uninsured, including many of our patients. That's troubling to us - those patients without health insurance do not get the preventative health services they need to stay healthy. Instead, they rely on costly emergency room care when their health severely deteriorates. This disturbing cycle puts a tremendous strain on our hospitals, public resources and, most of all, our patients' health.

Fortunately, Hillary Clinton has proposed a universal health care plan that will cover all Americans, lower costs, give Iowans choices and make health care more affordable. Given our medical experience, we think those are the fundamental reforms this system needs. Knowing that every patient we see will have health insurance is important to us because they will be more likely to seek preventative care, which helps us preserve their long term health and keep overall costs down.

We understand you have introduced a health care plan as well and that, unlike Hillary's plan, yours does not cover 15 million people. As a result, over 100,000 Iowans would go without health insurance. We're disappointed in your plan because we believe that the goal of universal health care is something all candidates should embrace. In fact, all the Democratic candidates but you have proposed universal coverage.

We also understand that your campaign claims that proposing universal health care is excessively ambitious. But we know that Hillary has the strength and experience to achieve her plan to cover each and every American - leaving not one of the 270,000 uninsured Iowans out of her plan.

The numbers of uninsured patients we see each year will only grow if we do not act boldly. On behalf of the uninsured Iowans we encounter in our work, we urge you to propose a new plan that, like Hillary's, calls for universal health care. We can't stand to see any Iowan remain without health insurance.

Sincerely,
Lee Hundson, Dougherty, RN;
Sharon Kropman, Mason City, RN;
Nancy Larson, Plymouth, LPN;
Rhonda True, Mason City, RN
Lorie Lyman, Iowa Falls, RN;
Dolores Wolf, Iowa Falls, LPN,
Kathy Lucero, Ft. Dodge, RN;
Susan Evers, Badger, RN

2) Health care professionals from Johnson County:
Dear Senator Obama,
We are medical professionals in the Johnson County area, and we treat uninsured Iowans every day. We know first hand that too many of our fellow Iowans who lack insurance often go without basic care and wait to seek help until a simple medical problem turns into something more dangerous.

Hillary Clinton has put forward a universal health care plan that will cut costs, give Iowans choices and make health care more affordable. Given what we see day in and day out, we think those are the fundamental reforms this system needs. Knowing that every patient we see has health insurance is important to us because they will be more likely to seek care early, which gives us a better shot at helping them.

We understand you have introduced a health care plan as well, and that it does not call for universal coverage. As a result, over 100,000 Iowans and 15 million people across the country could go without health insurance.

We also understand that your advisers have said proposing universal health care is excessively ambitious. To hear that sentiment from a Democrat is beyond disheartening - in fact, you are the only Democratic presidential candidate to not call for universal health care in your plan. It is not overly ambitious to expect our government to provide basic health insurance coverage for our citizens.

We urge you to reconsider your position. The number of uninsured patients we see each year will only grow if we do not act boldly, both for their sake and for the sake of Iowans working two and three jobs to be able to afford health insurance for their families.
The last thing we need is a Democratic presidential candidate taking hope away from uninsured Iowans, leaving them to wonder if they will be among the over 100,000 left out in the cold, uncovered by your plan.

On behalf of the uninsured men, women and children we treat, we ask you to go back to the drawing board and develop a plan that ensures that no Iowan will ever have to go without health insurance again.

Thank you,
Lynne Himmelreich, Oxford, ARNP, CNM, MPH;
Jill Vibhakar, Iowa City, MD

3) Health care professionals from Wapello and Mahaska Counties:
Dear Senator Barack Obama -
As health care professionals who routinely care for those who cannot afford health insurance, we are writing to urge you to support universal health care in your campaign. We understand from first hand experience the dangers of going without basic care. Every day many of our patients wake up hoping that they can get through the day without needing medical treatment that they can't afford.

Hillary Clinton has introduced a health care plan that will cover every American. Her plan provides people with the choice of keeping their own insurance or selecting another quality plan. We know that you have introduced a health care plan, but it doesn't cover all of us. In fact, your plan would leave 15 million Americans - including over 100,000 Iowans - without insurance. Moreover, we were saddened to read that your campaign thinks that proposing universal health care is excessively ambitious.

As the only Democratic presidential candidate to not propose universal health care, we hope that you will rethink your health care plan. If we do not act quickly to ensure health coverage for every man, woman, and child in our great nation, insurance will grow even more unattainable for so many people just like our patients. We believe that universal health care is an achievable dream - and we want all of the democratic presidential candidates to show they are willing to work tirelessly until all of the 270,000 uninsured Iowans have health care.

Hillary has pledged to use her strength and experience fighting special interests to make this dream a reality - will you?

Sincerely,
Judy Dejong of Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, RN;
Nancy Emanuel of Ottumwa, Wapello County, RN;
Carol Holmes Skinner of Ottumwa, Wapello County, Retired Nurse

4) Health care professional from Muscatine County:
Senator Obama -
I am writing to you as a registered nurse who has cared for many Iowans, both young and old, in and around Muscatine County. I am active in the community and feel strongly that all of us deserve access to quality and affordable health care.

I am writing to you because your campaign's comments that proposing universal health care is excessively ambitious are worrisome to me and many folks in the Muscatine and Quad Cities area. Uninsured Americans have enough challenges; not knowing if they would be among the people covered (or the 15 million people not covered) under your plan only intensifies their situation.

Hillary Clinton has a universal health care plan that will provide affordable, quality health care coverage to every single American. Iowans will have more choices, and health care would be more affordable. However, if they are happy with what they've got, Hillary's plan lets them keep their current coverage.

Your plan doesn't make the same promise - over 100,000 Iowans could likely stay uninsured if your plan comes to fruition. That's 100,000 too many. On behalf of the uninsured men, women and children in our community, I ask you to give Iowans - and our country - a plan that gives us the same hope as Hillary Clinton.

Sincerely,
Linda Reichert, of Muscatine County, Muscatine, RN

5) Health care professionals from Pottawattamie County:
Dear Senator Obama,
As active and retired members of the medical community, we are writing to urge you to reassess your health care plan and instead support universal health coverage for every American man, woman, and child. While we admire your interest in changing the health care system, we do not understand why you have proposed a plan that leaves 15 million Americans without health insurance - including over 100,000 Iowans.

Every day, our local hospitals treat patients who could have avoided health crises with simple preventative care. Instead, emergency rooms have become the primary care facilities for Iowans that have nowhere else to turn; driving up costs, overwhelming hospitals, and lowering the quality of health of many residents.

Hillary Clinton has proposed a health care plan that would provide universal coverage for every American. Her plan allows those satisfied with their health care plan to keep it, while providing cost-effective alternatives to those who want to switch plans or are currently uninsured. This universal health care solution is what we need to reverse the trend of rising costs and record numbers of uninsured Americans.

Your campaign recently said proposing universal health care was excessively ambitious. We want to point out, however, that you are the only Democratic presidential candidate who has not proposed a plan to provide universal health care coverage.

We believe it is Senator Clinton who has the strength and experience to make universal health care a reality. In thinking about the stark reality facing uninsured members of our community, we ask that you reconsider your position on this important issue.

If John F. Kennedy could challenge America to reach the moon in 9 years - a feat that required American ingenuity, imagination, and technology never before dreamed of - surely we can meet the challenge of providing health insurance for every American. We already have the technology, skills, and know-how. Now we just need a President who believes we can do it.

Sincerely,
Karole Anastasi, Honey Creek, RN and manager for clinics division of Alegent Health Systems, retired;
Vivian Dau, Oakland, RN, school nurse, retired;
Bobbie Moore, Honey Creek, RN, University of Nebraska Medical Center

6) Health care professional from Woodbury County:
Dear Senator Barack Obama -
As a practicing nurse, day in and day out I see patients who wait far too long to see a doctor for fear of not being able to pay for necessary medications or procedures. It is because of my life experiences that I strongly encourage you to support a universal health care plan. Each one of the many patients I see daily would be more likely to solicit a medical opinion if they had the health insurance to help cover their costs.

Hillary Clinton has a comprehensive quality health care plan aimed at covering all Americans. Her plan provides every man, woman, and child the choice of keeping their current insurance or selecting another quality plan. I understand that your plan leaves many families out.

Under your proposed health care plan, Senator Obama, over 100,000 Iowans would remain uninsured. The idea of health care being universal and offered nationwide is neither ambitious nor excessive, it is absolutely necessary.

As a lifelong Democrat, I really cannot understand how you can be the only Democratic presidential candidate to propose a health care plan which is not universal. I strongly urge you to reconsider the implications of your proposed plan. It is imperative for this and future generations that every person is eligible for quality health care coverage.
Hillary Clinton has vowed to fight for health care for every single American. Will you join her in this important fight?

Sincerely,
Madonna Griffith, Lawton, RN

7) Health care professional from Kossuth County:
Dear Senator Obama,

With the abundance of qualified candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination it was difficult for me to decide who I would be supporting. But as a health care professional, I know it is imperative that universal health care be achieved in the next presidential administration.

It was incredibly disheartening to hear your campaign advisers say that proposing universal health care is excessively ambitious. Under your current plan for virtually universal health care, over 100,000 Iowans and 15 million Americans will be left uninsured. They will continue to rely solely on emergency care, which is expensive for the individual and the government.

Hillary Clinton's universal health care plan gives the consumer the advantage by offering more choices and lowering costs. It allows consumers to keep the insurance they have if they like it and change it if they don't or aren't currently covered.

Hillary Clinton has worked her whole life for change. She has taken on the Republicans and special interests to work for real change. Nobody has worked harder or longer to improve health care.

As the only candidate in the Democratic presidential campaign to not propose universal health care, I think it will behoove you to re-evaluate your decision to exclude 15 million people from your health care plan. The country is ready for change and we need a leader who will get us there.

Sincerely,
Dona Tebben of Corwith, Kossuth County, Home Health Aid and Family Support Worker

8) Health care professionals from Story and Warren County:
Senator Obama,
As health care professionals we both deal with uninsured Iowans every day. It pains us when we see patients who come for care in poor condition because they waited too long before seeking the basic care they need.

This is an extremely serious problem that demands bold action, not half-hearted attempts. With over 270,000 uninsured Iowans and over 47 million uninsured nationwide, we need a president who has the strength, experience and political courage to end this fight once and for all. Senator Obama, we encourage you to change your plan and take the necessary steps to ensure all Americans will be covered.

Hillary Clinton has a plan to insure every single American - including the over 100,000 Iowans who would lack coverage under your plan. We have decided to support Hillary because in our opinion you cannot run for president today without putting forward a plan that will insure each and every American. Hillary understands that in order to achieve this important goal we need to fully commit ourselves to this cause.

We were disappointed to hear that your campaign thinks proposing universal health care is excessively ambitious. You are the only Democratic presidential candidate to not propose universal health care and, unfortunately, efforts like yours that vow to take universal coverage slow and work towards coverage as a long term goal shows a lack of commitment. Insurance companies will certainly exploit that weakness and use it to their advantage at the negotiating table.

Hillary's plan will give consumers the choice of keeping their own coverage or selecting from a menu of other quality insurance plans while keeping premiums under a locked percentage of their income. With the power of choice, insurers will have to compete for their consumers, which will drive down costs and finally make the consumer the center of health care coverage.

Fifteen million Americans and over 100,000 Iowans would still lack coverage under your plan. For us and for Hillary Clinton, that is 15 million and 100,000 people too many.

Sincerely,
Catherine Bagley of Nevada, Story County; RN;
Marilyn Kirkpatrick of New Virginia, Warren County; CPC

From NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann
DES MOINES, IA -- For McCain's sake, Sam Brownback wishes he was Babs.

"I wish that he had glitzier people up here to represent him," the former candidate told an audience of Iowa county officials as he stumped for McCain here this morning. "I'm not Barbra Streisand. I'm not Oprah."

"I wish I were," he added.

The often straight-laced conservative senator cocked his head and reconsidered the remark as the crowd chuckled. "Okay," he conceded with a smile, "But I wish I could sing like that."

Brownback, who dropped out of the presidential race in October, is now stumping full force for Senate colleague McCain here in Iowa. The McCain campaign hopes to harvest support from former Brownback supporters, many of them Christian pro-life conservatives.

And no one can say that the man from Kansas doesn't have a sense of humor about it. "Many candidates enter and few leave Iowa," he told members of the Iowa State Association of Counties. "I should know. I'm one of them."

Brownback told NBC/NJ after his remarks that there's a "certain wistfulness" to campaigning on a former rival's behalf, but he hopes that his endorsement of McCain will give him "some cache with another segment of the electorate." He conceded that many of his former supporters will likely be won over by Baptist charmer Gov. Mike Huckabee -- "yeah, we'll lose some," he said --  but added that Huckabee suffers from weakness on foreign and economic policy experience. 

All he wants, he said, is to makes sure that McCain isn't overlooked as Iowans consider their choices for January. "I just hope people give him a second look."

Brownback says that he came out of his failed bid for the presidency "a better man." But for now, he seems to be enjoying going to bat for his longtime Senate colleague.

And being a US senator ain't half bad either. "It's a great gig," he told the crowd today. "You should try it sometime."

From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
Everybody knew Bill Clinton could be both a blessing and a curse for Mrs. Clinton in her quest to become America's first female president, and it doesn't seem like her campaign has quite figured out just what to do with him. He's there one minute -- stumping for his wife, taking the blame for the failure of "Hillarycare" in the 1990s a few weeks ago, or rewriting history on his position on the Iraq war this week -- and gone the next.

While Obama has been playing up the future campaign stops to be made by his most popular surrogate, Oprah Winfrey, Clinton campaign staffers aren't saying anything about when Bill will hit the road for his wife again -- or whether they'll be appearing together at campaign events any time soon. (Then again, the Clinton camp is notoriously tight-lipped about even minor details when it comes to schedules.)

"The "We-ness", or the Bill Clinton factor, has been dicey from the beginning. There's no road map for this," said Barbara Kellerman, a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and an expert on the presidency and women in politics. "It seems to me that they're figuring it out as they go along. My impression is this is very short-term planning."

At the moment, that seems to be the case. On the stump over the last week in Iowa and South Carolina, Hillary's mentions of her husband and her use of the word "we" have been on the rise. For months, the senator has been bringing up Bill in talking about the budget surplus he left at the end of his term, and saying that President Bush has squandered that money, but she is spending more time lately talking about him and about her involvement in his administration.

At a recent stop in Iowa Falls, IA (on November 25), Clinton referred to "my husband" or said "we" in reference to his presidency six times in 14 minutes. To wit:
-- "I want to give Medicare the right to negotiate for lower drug prices with the drug companies. That's what we did with the VA when my husband was president," she said during the question and answer session.
-- "When we did welfare reform back in 90s, the Republican Congress tried to pass a reform bill that eliminated Medicaid for mothers transitioning into the workforce, tried to limit the amount of time you could stay on Medicaid and I was proud of my husband for vetoing both of those," the senator said in response to a question about helping single mothers transition from welfare to work without losing their health coverage.
-- When asked about immigration, she said "I've traveled this country continually for more than 15 years. During the 1990s, at events like this, people weren't asking me questions. Now they ask me at every event. Why? Because we created more than 22 million jobs in the 1990s in America, average income went up. People lifted themselves out of poverty. We had an economic policy in the 1990s that worked for Americans."
-- And at a school in Bennettsville, SC on Tuesday, the she made reference to "the first Clinton Administration" in talking about a program her husband put in place to increase the number of police on the streets. It's all part of the Clintons' argument for taking America "back to the future."

There's nothing wrong with any Democrat highlighting what they see as a past Democratic president's successes or the party's. It's also true that for Hillary these references could be interpreted as an attempt to conflate her time in the White House, by her husband's side, with his successes, and to add to her own argument that she is the best experienced candidate to do his former job. Over the weekend in Perry, IA, she argued that she was the "face of America" during his Administration.

"I traveled to I think, uh, I don't know, maybe 80, 82 countries and I went a lot of places that the president or the vice president or the secretary of state couldn't get there yet," Clinton told reporters. "I think that there are lots of ways in which what I did was the face of America when I was there, when I was representing not just my husband but the country."

So just what do voters think about all this?

Said Ed Jenkins, a retiree from Spartanburg, SC: "I think the fact that she was in that Administration and very much a part of politics with her husband, their good partnership as far as moving up in the world and doing things and that when he was governor, she was knowledgeable of what he was doing all the time, when he was the president, she was quite knowledgeable of what he was doing. She's a U.S. senator now and I think she has all the qualifications. She has more than enough."

But there's still a danger here. "The most interesting thing about this gender issue at the moment is she's referring much more –- which I think is a mistake -– to her time in the White House, rather than her very good record in the Senate," said the Kennedy School's Kellerman.

Some voters agree. "She's a woman. She needs to make a standing for herself and with her expertise I really think that she could really do good even if though she doesn't have to have the background experience of her husband," said Floree Copeland, a fan of Bill Clinton and one of the South Carolina ministers who came out to endorse the senator in Spartanburg on Tuesday. "I just think that she really needs to stand on her own actual record."

From NBC's Andy Merten

Although McCain showed his signature dry wit during a press conference in St. Petersburg, FL this morning while answering questions about last night's debate, he reserved some serious candor when he revisited last night's discussion between himself and Romney on waterboarding.

"If we're not better than our enemy," said McCain, "then it's very hard for us to maintain and keep the moral high ground in this ideological struggle that we're in against radical Islamic extremism."

He went on to say Romney "should at least get better briefed," adding of the torture technique, which is banned by the Geneva Conventions:  "I would also hope he would not want to be associated with a technique which was invented in the Spanish Inquisition, was used by Pol Pot in one of the great eras of genocide in history, and is being use on Burmese monks as we speak."

But the Arizona Senator earned a couple chuckles from the group of reporters when he expressed happiness with his performance last night, saying, "My staff don't show me the bad reviews, only the good reviews, so I'm exhilarated.  Last time they showed me a bad review, we didn't see them for a while."

From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
As if Thompson's YouTube-style video from last night's debate wasn't receiving enough attention, the campaign is now releasing an extended version of last night's video entitled "Revolution," featuring hits on all three of his major opponents. Dubbed by the Romney team as this campaign's first "attack ad," the video that aired last night featured old clips of Romney and Huckabee supporting abortion and tax increases respectively.

Well, the two-minute extended version posted on Thompson's website during the debate and released to media outlets today includes one more line of attack. The video opens with a message that reads, "During the Republican Revolution, Fred Thompson was leading as a proud conservative." Then after the clips of Romney and Huckabee shown last night, the extended video includes two clips of a younger-looking Giuliani announcing his endorsement for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in New York, Mario Cuomo, and saying that the NRA goes "way overboard, it's almost what the extremists on the other side do."

The fact that the campaign decided to exclude the part about Giuliani last night in favor of the two candidates closer to Thompson in the polls seems to indicate where the campaign feels its opposition resources are best spent. And although the campaign has said it will not be buying any television time for its new video, it is sure to cause something of stir with the chattering class.

From NBC/NJ's Erin McPike
On the heels of last night's Republican debate, the Romney campaign announced that the former governor has scored another important endorsement from conservative activist David Keene.

According to the campaign's statement, Keene explained, "As this race began, I intended to

remain neutral both because there was no conservative consensus candidate and because I know and admire several of those running for the Republican nomination who I believe could win next fall. In recent months, however, Governor Romney has emerged as the single candidate most worthy of conservative support."

Keene is the chairman of the American Conservative Union and has worked with numerous presidential candidates -- though in failed campaign runs, including Reagan's and George H.W. Bush's initial attempts, and Dole's 1996 race. He also worked for Spiro Agnew.

One thing absent from the campaign's release is Keene's involvement on the National Rifle Association's board. Given the ruckus that Thompson made recently on Second Amendment rights that made some waves with other top GOP candidates, it seems to be an interesting omission.

From NBC's Mark Murray
Giuliani's new TV ad in New Hampshire and Boston...

[YouTube:tBnEVTdIx_I]

And Hillary's new TV ad...

[Youtube:I9euN8s4qjA]

It almost feels like a general election back-and-forth, doesn't it? Of course, Rudy's ad also mentions Obama and Edwards.